MEMORIAL 


OF  THE  TRUSTEES  OF  THE 


Peabody  Education  Fund, 


WITH 


THE  REPORT  OF  THEIR  COMMITTEE  ON  THE  SUBJECT 
OF  THE  EDUCATION  OF  THE  COLORED  POPU¬ 
LATION  OF  THE  SOUTHERN  STATES. 


19  February,  1880. 


CAMBRIDGE : 

UNIVERSITY  PRESS:  JOHN  WILSON  &  SON. 

1880. 


TRUSTEES 

OF  THE 

PEABODY  EDUCATION  FUND. 


Oo 


T 


The  Board  as  originally  appointed  by  Mr.  Peabody  consisted 
of  the  following  members  :  — 

Hon.  Robert  C.  Winthrop . Massachusetts. 

Hon.  Hamilton  Fish . New  York. 

*Right  Rev.  Charles  P.  McIlvaine  .  .  Ohio. 

General  U.  S.  Grant . United  States  Army. 

^Admiral  D.  G.  Farragut . United  States  Navy . 

*Hon.  William  C.  Rives . Virginia. 

*Hon.  John  H.  Clifford . Massachusetts. 

Hon.  William  Aiken . South  Carolina. 

Hon.  William  M.  Evarts . New  York. 

*Hon.  William  A.  Graham . North  Carolina. 

^Charles  Macalester,  Esq . Pennsylvania. 

George  W.  Riggs,  Esq . Washington. 

Samuel  Wetmore,  Esq . New  York. 

*Edward  A.  Bradford,  Esq . Louisiana. 

*George  N.  Eaton,  Esq . Maryland. 

George  Peabody  Russell,  Esq.  .  .  .  Massachusetts. 

The  vacancies  created  by  the  deaths  of  Hon.  William  C. 
Rives,  of  Admiral  Farragut,  of  Bishop  McIlvaine,  of 
Charles  Macalester,  Esq.,  of  George  N.  Eaton,  Esq.,  of 
Hon.  William  A.  Graham,  and  of  Hon.  John  H.  Clifford, 
and  by  the  resignation  of  Edward  A.  Bradford,  Esq.,  have 
been  filled  by  the  election  of 

*Hon.  Samuel  Watson . Tennessee. 

Hon.  A.  H.  H.  Stuart . Virginia. 

^General  Richard  Taylor . Louisiana. 

Surgeon-General  Joseph  K.  Barnes,  U.  S.  A.  .  Washington. 

Chief-Justice  Morrison  R.  Waite . Washington. 

Right  Rev.  H.  B.  Whipple . Minnesota. 

Hon.  Henry  R.  Jackson . Georgia. 

Col.  Theodore  Lyman . Massachusetts. 

The  vacancies  caused  by  the  death  of  Hon.  Samuel  Watson  and 
General  Richard  Taylor  have  been  filled  by  the  election  of 
Rutherford  B.  Hayes  ....  President  of  the  United  States. 
Hon.  Thomas  C.  Manning . Louisiana. 

GENERAL  AGENT. 

(To  whom  all  communications  should  be  addressed.) 

Rev.  Barnas  Sears,  D.D . Staunton ,  Virginia. 


MEMORIAL. 


To  the  Honorable  the  Senate  and  House  of  Represe7itatives 

of  the  United  States  in  Congress  assembled :  — 

The  Trustees  of  The  Peabody  Education  Fund 
respectfully  represent :  — 

That,  in  administering  the  great  Trust  committed 
to  them  by  the  late  George  Peabody,  their  attention 
has  been  turned  to  the  vital  necessity  of  National 
Aid  for  the  education  of  the  colored  population  of 
the  Southern  States,  and  especially  of  the  great 
masses  of  colored  children  who  are  growing  up  to  ( 
be  voters  under  the  Constitution  of  the  Unitedj 
States  :  — 

That  the  subject  of  invoking  such  Aid  was  referred 
for  consideration,  in  October  last,  to  a  Special  Com¬ 
mittee  of  their  Board,  consisting  of  Alexander  H.  H. 
Stuart,  of  Virginia,  Morrison  R.  Waite,  of  Ohio,  and 
William  M.  Evarts,  of  New  York;  and  that  the  Re¬ 
port  of  this  Committee,  after  careful  deliberation,  has 
now  received  the  unanimous  assent  of  the  Trustees, 
and  of  their  General  Agent,  Dr.  Sears. 


4 


The  Trustees  ask  leave  to  submit  this  Report  to 
the  consideration  of  Congress,  with  an  expression  of 
their  earnest  hope  that  it  may  receive  an  early  and 
favorable  attention,  and  that  seasonable  provision 
may  be  made  for  meeting  an  exigency  which  con¬ 
cerns  the  best  interests  of  the  whole  Union. 

ROBERT  C.  WINTHROP, 

Chairman . 

George  Peabody  Russell, 

Secretary. 


Washington, 

February  20,  1880. 


EDUCATION 


FOR 

THE  COLORED  POPULATION  OF  THE 
SOUTHERN  STATES. 


At  a  Special  Meeting  of  the  Trustees  of  the 
Peabody  Education  Fund,  held  at  Washington,  on 
the  1 8th  and  19th  of  February,  1880,  the  following 
Report  was  unanimously  accepted,  and  the  Resolu¬ 
tion  at  its  close  adopted  :  — 

The  Committee  to  whom  such  portions  of  the  Chair¬ 
man’s  Address,  and  of  Dr.  Sears’s  Report,  as  relate  to  the 
special  needs  for  Education  in  the  South,  were  referred  in 
October  last,  have  had  the  same  under  consideration,  and 
respectfully  submit  the  following 

REPORT. 

The  fundamental  principle  of  every  republican  govern¬ 
ment,  is,  as  tersely  expressed  in  the  Bill  of  Rights  of  Vir¬ 
ginia,  “that  all  power  is  vested  in,  and  consequently  derived 
from,  the  people;  that  magistrates  are  their  trustees  and 
servants,  and,  at  all  times,  amenable  to  them.”  The  will  of 
the  people,  as  expressed  in  the  modes  prescribed  by  the 
organic  law,  is,  therefore,  the  only  legitimate  governing 
power.  The  constitution  of  a  State  is  but  the  deliberate 
and  solemn  embodiment  of  the  will  of  the  people,  by  which 


6  EDUCATION  FOR  THE  COLORED  POPULATION 


they  ordain  and  establish  a  form  of  government,  under 
which  they  are  content  to  live,  and  by  which  they  distrib¬ 
ute,  among  its  various  departments,  the  powers  which  they 
deem  necessary  for  the  preservation  of  social  order,  and 
the  security  of  life,  liberty,  and  property.  The  functions 
of  these  departments  respectively,  and  of  the  magistrates 
chosen  to  administer  them,  are  to  give  effect  to  the  judg¬ 
ment  of  the  people,  as  ascertained  in  the  modes  and  by 
the  agencies  appointed  by  the  constitution  and  by  the  laws 
made  in  pursuance  thereof. 

The  political  system  of  the  United  States  differs  from 
that  of  most  countries,  in  this :  that  it  recognizes  two 
distinct  governments,  viz.,  the  government  organized  in 
each  State,  and  intended  to  regulate  its  local  and  domestic 
affairs,  and  the  Federal  government,  ordained  to  exercise 
the  powers  confided  to  it,  in  relation  to  such  subjects  as 
affect  the  welfare  of  all  the  States.  It  was  the  intention  of 
the  founders  of  our  system,  that  each  of  these  governments 
should  exercise  the  powers  conferred  on  them  respectively, 
and  that  neither  should  encroach  on  the  rightful  authority 
of  the  other. 

This  brief  statement  of  the  dual  and  complex  character 
of  our  institutions  must  satisfy  every  reflecting  mind  that 
both  wisdom  and  virtue  are  necessary  in  their  administra¬ 
tion.  Owing  to  the  infirmity  of  human  nature,  there  is  a 
constant  tendency  on  the  part  of  magistrates  to  usurp 
powers  not  conferred  on  them,  and  to  encroach  on  the 
rights  of  others.  Under  our  system,  grave  and  intricate 
questions  often  arise,  which  involve  not  merely  the  wisdom 
of  measures  of  public  policy,  but  also  the  relative  jurisdic¬ 
tion  or  constitutional  powers  of  the  two  governments. 

As  the  people  are  the  ultimate  arbiters  of  all  such  dis¬ 
putes,  it  is  obviously  necessary  that  they  shall  possess  that 
degree  of  education  which  will  enable  them  to  understand 


OF  THE  SOUTHERN  STATES.  .  7 

clearly  the  matters  in  controversy,  and  to  render  an  intelli¬ 
gent  judgment  on  them  at  the  polls.  It  cannot  be  expected 
that  the  stream  will  be  purer  than  the  fountain  from  which 
it  flows.  If,  then,  the  people.,  who  are  the  source  of  all 
power,  be  ignorant  or  corrupt,  their  government  must  soon 
become  tainted  with  the  same  vices. 

Our  Revolutionary  fathers  seem  to  have  been  deeply 
impressed  with  this  great  truth.  Their  writings  abound 
with  expressions  of  their  sense  of  the  importance  of  a  gen¬ 
eral  diffusion  of  knowledge  among  the  people. 

They  felt  that  the  only  hope  of  the  permanency  of  free 
institutions  rested  on  the  virtue  and  intelligence  of  those 
clothed  with  the  elective  franchise.  Their  jealous  appre¬ 
hension  on  this  subject  is  manifest  from  the  fact  that  after  the 
thirteen  colonies  declared  themselves  free  and  independent 
States,  and  undertook  to  form  constitutions  for  their  future 
government,  they  were  careful  to  provide  every  practicable 
safeguard  against  the  participation  of  ignorant  voters  in 
the  administration  of  public  affairs.  Knowing  that  they 
were  about  to  enter  on  an  experiment,  which  had  often  been 
made  and  as  often  failed,  of  the  capacity  of  man  for  self- 
government,  they  were  careful  to  restrict  the  right  of  suf¬ 
frage  to  those  classes  which  were  presumed  to  be  most 
intelligent.  And  as,  at  that  early  day,  when  common 
schools  were  comparatively  unknown,  education  was  con¬ 
fined  mainly  to  property-holders,  in  most,  if  not  all  the 
States,  the  right  to  vote  was  restricted,  in  some  cases 
to  freeholders;  in  others,  to  the  owners  of  a  specified 
amount  of  personal  property ;  and  in  others,  to  those  who 
had  been  sufficiently  educated  to  be  able  to  read  and  write. 
These  restrictions  were  maintained,  in  most  of  the  States, 
for  many  years,  and  in  one  at  least  for  half  a  century. 
Gradually,  however,  as  education  became  more  general 
and  the  people  more  intelligent,  they  were  from  time  to 


8  EDUCATION  FOR  THE  COLORED  POPULATION 


time  relaxed,  until  finally,  in  most  of  the  States,  they  have 
been  entirely  abolished,  and  “  manhood  suffrage,”  with  ex¬ 
ceptions  for  crime,  or  failure  to  discharge  some  public  duty, 
is  now  the  rule. 

It  may  not  be  unprofitable  to  refer  to  the  recorded 
opinions  of  some  of  the  Fathers  of  the  Republic  on  the 
importance  of  a  general  diffusion  of  knowledge  among  the 
people. 

Washington,  in  his  Farewell  Address,  condenses  into  two 
short  sentences  an  admonition  which  should  never  be  for¬ 
gotten  by  the  American  people.  “  Promote,  then,”  says 
he,  “  as  an  object  of  primary  importance,  institutions  for 
the  general  diffusion  of  knowledge.  In  proportion  as  the 
structure  of  a  government  gives  force  to  public  opinion,  it 
is  essential  that  public  opinion  should  be  enlightened.” 

The  writings  of  John  Adams  are  replete  with  expressions 
of  his  estimate  of  the  value  of  popular  education,  as  the 
best  safeguard  of  free  institutions. 

Thomas  Jefferson,  after  his  retirement  from  the  presi¬ 
dency,  in  1809,  dedicated  the  remainder  of  his  life  to  the 
cause  of  education  in  his  native  State.  He  digested  with 
great  care  a  general  system,  which  embraced,  —  “  1st,  ele¬ 
mentary  schools,  for  all  children,  rich  and  poor ;  2d,  colleges 
for  a  middle  degree  of  instruction,  calculated  for  the  com¬ 
mon  purposes  of  life,  and  such  as  would  be  desirable  for 
ail  who  would  be  in  easy  circumstances ;  and  3d,  an  ulti¬ 
mate  grade  (a  university)  for  teaching  the  same  generally, 
and  in  their  highest  degree.” 

His  system  was  to  some  extent  carried  into  effect  in 
Virginia,  and,  mainly  by  his  exertions  and  influence,  the 
University  of  Virginia  was  established.  Such  was  his  esti¬ 
mate  of  the  importance  of  this  institution,  that  when  he 
prepared  the  brief  epitaph  which  he  wished  inscribed  on 
his  tomb,  as  commemorative  of  the  most  signal  services 


OF  THE  SOUTHERN  STATES. 


9 


which  he  had  rendered  to  his  country,  he  speaks  of  him¬ 
self  as,  “Author  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  —  of 
the  Virginia  Bill  for  Religious  Freedom,  —  and  Father  of 
the  University  of  Virginia.”  In  a  letter  to  Mr.  Yancey, 
dated  Jan.  6,  1816,  Mr.  Jefferson  says:  “If  a  nation  ex¬ 
pects  to  be  ignorant  and  free,  in  a  state  of  civilization,  it 
expects  what  never  will  be.  The  functionaries  of  every 
government  have  propensities  to  command  at  will  the  liberty 
and  property  of  their  constituents.  There  is  no  safe  deposit 
for  them  but  with  the  people  themselves;  nor  can  they 
be  safe  with  them  without  information.  Where  the  press 
is  free,  and  every  man  able  to  -read,  all  is  safe.”  In  another 
letter,  to  Governor  Nicholas,  dated  April  2,  1816,  speaking 
of  his  system  of  elementary  education,  he  says :  “  My 
partiality  for  that  division  is  not  founded  in  view  of  edu¬ 
cation  solely,  but  infinitely  more  as  a  means  of  the  better 
administration  of  our  government,  and  the  eternal  preser¬ 
vation  of  its  republican  principles.” 

Although  it  may  be  stepping  aside  from  the  immediate 
purpose  of  this  report,  it  may  not  be  uninteresting,  as  a 
matter  connected  with  the  personal  history  of  that  great 
statesman,  to  say,  that  he  was  by  no  means  a  mere  theorist 
in  regard  to  popular  education.  He  labored  long  and  as¬ 
siduously  to  carry  his  theories  into  practical  effect.  He 
not  only  originated  and  digested  the  elective  system  of 
instruction,  which  still  prevails  in  the  University  of  Vir¬ 
ginia,  and  has  been  so  extensively  copied  in  other  institu¬ 
tions,  but  he  planned  and  personally  superintended  the 
erection  of  all  the  buildings  intended  for  its  use.  And 
when  the  university  was  about  to  open  its  doors  to  students, 
although  he  had  attained  the  advanced  age  of  eighty-one 
years,  he  accepted  the  office  of  rector,  and  continued  faith¬ 
fully  to  discharge  its  duties  until  his  death ;  and  during  all 
that  time  the  proceedings  of  the  Board  of  Visitors  were 
recorded  in  his  own  handwriting. 


IO  EDUCATION  FOR  THE  COLORED  POPULATION 


Mr.  Madison,  who  has  been  called  the  Father  of  our 
Federal  Constitution,  and  who  certainly  contributed  as 
much  as  any  other  man  in  framing  its  provisions,  was 
equally  emphatic  in  the  expression  of  his  opinions  of  the 
value  of  popular  education.  In  a  letter  to  Wm.  T.  Barry, 
of  Kentucky,  dated  Aug.  4,  1826,  he  says:  “A  popular 
government  without  popular  information,  or  the  means  of 
acquiring  it,  is  but  a  prologue  to  a  farce  or  tragedy,  or 
perhaps  both.  Knowledge  will  forever  govern  ignorance, 
and  a  people  who  mean  to  be  their  own  governors  must 
arm  themselves  with  the  power  which  knowledge  gives.” 
In  another  letter,  to  Littleton  D.  Teakle,  of  Maryland, 
Mr.  Madison  says :  “  The  best  service  that  can  be  rendered 
to  a  country,  next  to  that  of  giving  it  liberty,  is  in  diffus¬ 
ing  the  mental  improvement  essential  to  the  preservation 
and  enjoyment  of  the  blessing.” 

Quotations  of  a  similar  character,  from  the  writings  of 
the  statesmen  and  sages  of  the  earlier  days  of  the  republic, 
might  be  indefinitely  multiplied,  but  your  committee  will 
content  themselves  with  adding  a  single  extract  from  the 
Inaugural  Address  of  President  Monroe,  delivered  on  the 
4th  of  March,  1817:  — 

“  Had  the  people  of  the  United  States  been  educated  in  differ¬ 
ent  principles,  had  they  been  less  intelligent,  less  independent,  or 
less  virtuous,  can  it  be  believed  that  we  should  have  maintained  the 
same  steady  and  consistent  career,  or  been  blest  with  the  same 
success?  While,  then,  the  constituent  body  retains  its  present 
sound  and  healthful  state,  all  will  be  safe.  It  is  only  when  the 
people  become  ignorant  and  corrupt,  when  they  degenerate  into  a 
populace,  that  they  become  incapable  of  exercising  sovereignty. 
Usurpation  is  an  easy  attainment,  and  an  usurper  soon  found.  The 
people  themselves  become  the  willing  instruments  of  their  own  de¬ 
basement  and  ruin.  Let  us  look  to  the  great  cause,  and  endeavor 
to  preserve  it  in  full  force.  Let  us,  by  all  wise  and  constitutional 
measures,  promote  intelligence  among  the  people,  as  the  best 
means  of  preserving  our  liberties.” 


OF  THE  SOUTHERN  STATES. 


II 


If  these  solemn  admonitions  of  the  importance  of  elevat¬ 
ing  the  standard  of  popular  intelligence,  as  indispensable 
to  the  safety  of  our  liberties,  were  deemed  necessary  at 
that  early  day,  when  our  population  was  small,  and  com¬ 
paratively  homogeneous,  and  when  the  elective  franchise 
was  confined  to  the  most  intelligent  classes,  it  will  hardly 
be  contended  that  they  have  lost  any  of  their  force  by  the 
progress  of  events  since  they  were  promulgated.  Restric¬ 
tions  which  then  existed  on  the  right  to  participate  in  the 
administration  of  the  government,  through  the  right  of 
suffrage,  and  which  were  intended  to  exclude  the  ignorant, 
have  been  removed.  Many  thousands  of  immigrants,  of 
all  nations  and  tongues,  who  had  been  reared  under  mo¬ 
narchical  governments,  and  who  were  illiterate  and  unac¬ 
quainted  with  the  spirit  and  genius  of  our  institutions,  and 
incapable  even  of  reading  the  provisions  of  our  Constitu¬ 
tion,  have  been  brought  to  our  shores ;  and,  within  little 
more  than  a  decade,  nearly  five  millions  of  people  of  Afri¬ 
can  descent  have  been  emancipated  and  elevated  to  the 
dignity  of  citizenship,  and  placed  on  the  same  level  with 
the  white  race  in  regard  to  the  elective  franchise. 

The  relation  of  this  latter  class,  especially,  of  our  fellow- 
citizens,  to  the  government  and  people  of  the  United  States 
opens  a  wide  field  of  inquiry  as  to  the  nature  and  extent 
of  the  obligations  and  duties  which  grow  out  of  it. 

It  would  be  foreign  to  the  purposes  of  this  Report  to 
enter  into  an  extended  discussion  of  the  history  of  the 
introduction  of  African  slaves  into  our  country,  or  of  the 
many  questions  connected  with  their  presence  among  us. 
But  it  can  hardly  be  deemed  out  of  place  to  state  the 
unquestionable  fact  that  they  were  introduced  into  what  is 
now  the  territory  of  the  United  States  by  authority  of 
the  British  Government,  more  than  one  hundred  years  be¬ 
fore  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  and  while  we  were 


12  EDUCATION  FOR  THE  COLORED  POPULATION 


British  Colonies.  Nor  was  it  done  with  the  sanction  of  the 
Colonial  Legislatures.  On  the  contrary,  there  is  abundant 
evidence  to  prove  that  some,  if  not  all,  of  the  Colonies 
earnestly  remonstrated  against  it. 

The  preamble  to  the  first  constitution  of  Virginia, 
adopted  on  the  12th  of  June,  1776,  three  weeks  before  the 
Declaration  of  Independence,  in  reciting  the  causes  of  com¬ 
plaint  against  the  British  Government  which  had  impelled 
that  commonwealth  to  arms,  assigns  as  one  of  the  most 
prominent,  “  that  the  king,  by  the  inhuman  use  of  his 
negative,  refused  permission  to  exclude  by  law  the  intro¬ 
duction  of  negro  slaves.” 

It  further  appears,  from  the  testimony  of  Mr.  Jefferson, 
that  his  original  draft  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence 
contained  the  following  impassioned  paragraph :  “  He  (the 
king)  has  waged  cruel  war  against  human  nature  itself, 
violating  its  most  sacred  rights  of  life  and  liberty  in  the 
persons  of  a  distant  people,  who  never  offended  him ;  cap¬ 
tivating  and  carrying  them  into  slavery  in  another  hemi¬ 
sphere,  or  to  incur  miserable  death  in  their  transportation 
thither.  This  piratical  warfare,  the  opprobrium  of  Infidel 
Powers ,  is  the  warfare  of  the  Christian  King  of  Great 
Britain.  Determined  to  keep  open  a  market  where  men 
should  be  bought,  he  has  prostituted  his  negative  for 
suppressing  every  legislative  attempt  to  prohibit  or  re¬ 
strain  this  execrable  commerce.”  —  Writings  of  Jefferson , 
Vol.  I.,  p.  19.  It  is  true  that,  from  motives  of  prudence, 
this  harsh  denunciation  of  the  British  king  was  stricken 
out  by  the  committee,  but  that  circumstance  does  not  in 
any  degree  invalidate  the  truth  of  the  charge. 

The  fact  was  recently  distinctly  admitted  by  John  Bright, 
the  eminent  British  statesman,  in  a  speech  delivered  by  him 
at  Rochdale,  on  the  19th  December,  1879.  In  that  speech 
he  is  reported  to  have  said  :  “And  I  may  tell  you  that  slav- 


OF  THE  SOUTHERN  STATES. 


13 


ery  in  the  United  States  was  not  the  offspring  of  republi¬ 
can  institutions.  It  was  there  in  colonial  and  monarchical 
times;  it  was  during  the  time  of  George  III.  that,  when 
the  Colonies  and  the  United  States  would  have  abolished 
the  slave-trade,  the  English  Government  forbade  that  abo¬ 
lition,  and  continued  the  trade.” 

Buckle,  Vol.  I.,  page  321,  says:  “  George  III.  looked 
upon  slavery  as  one  of  those  good  old  customs  which  the 
wisdom  of  his  ancestors  had  consecrated.”  And  in  a  note 
he  adds :  “  Such  was  the  king’s  zeal  in  favor  of  the  slave- 
trade,  that  in  1770  he  issued  an  instruction  under  his  own 
hand,  commanding  the  governor  (of  Virginia),  upon  pain 
of  the  highest  displeasure,  to  assent  to  no  law  by  which 
the  importation  of  slaves  should  be  in  any  respect  pro¬ 
hibited  or  obstructed.”  —  Bancroft' s  American  Revolution, 
Vol.  III.,  p.  456. 

Edmund  Burke,  in  his  great  speech  on  conciliation  with 
America,  delivered  in  the  House  of  Commons,  March  22, 
1775,  referring  to  a  proposition  to  enfranchise  the  slaves  in 
the  Colonies,  said :  “  Slaves  as  those  unfortunate  black 
people  are,  and  dull  as  all  men  are  from  slavery,  must 
they  not  a  little  suspect  the  offer  of  freedom  from  that 
very  nation  which  has  sold  them  to  their  present  masters, 
—  from  that  nation,  one  of  whose  causes  of  quarrel  with 
those  masters  is  their  refusal  to  deal  any  more  in  that 
inhuman  traffic?” 

These  facts  abundantly  prove  that  whatever  responsibility 
attaches  to  the  introduction  and  continuance  of  slavery  in 
the  Colonies  rests  with  the  Government  of  Great  Britain. 
It  is  due,  however,  to  the  truth  of  history  to  say,  that, 
when  our  fathers  undertook  to  form  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States,  they  found  the  institution  of  slavery  so  inter¬ 
woven  with  our  industrial  and  social  systems  that  they  were 
obliged  to  leave  it  as  they  found  it,  trusting,  doubtless,  that 


14  EDUCATION  FOR  THE  COLORED  POPULATION 


a  cure  for  it  would  be  found  in  the  future.  Hence,  neither 
the  word  “  slave  ”  nor  “  slavery  ”  is  to  be  found  in  the 
Constitution. 

At  the  close  of  the  Revolutionary  War,  slavery  existed 
in  all  the  Colonies.  But,  under  the  influence  of  wise  legis¬ 
lation,  it  gradually  receded  from  the  Northern  to  the  more 
Southern  States,  where  it  lingered  until  the  close  of  the 
Civil  War,  when,  happily,  by  an  amendment  to  the  Consti¬ 
tution  of  the  United  States,  this  disturbing  element  in  our 
political  affairs  ceased  to  exist  anywhere  within  the  juris¬ 
diction  of  our  Government. 

Every  intelligent  man  must  have  foreseen  that  the  grant 
of  civil  and  political  rights  to  the  colored  race  must,  sooner 
or  later,  be  the  logical  sequence  of  emancipation.  The  only 
question  which  admitted  of  debate  was  as  to  the  time  when 
those  rights  should  be  bestowed.  On  this  question  there 
was  much  diversity  of  opinion.  Some  of  the  wisest  states¬ 
men  of  the  day  maintained  that,  in  their  uneducated  con¬ 
dition,  the  colored  race  would  be  an  unsafe  depository  of 
political  power.  They  therefore  contended  for  a  period 
of  probation,  during  which  this  race  could  be  educated  up 
to  the  level  of  their  political  duties. 

Other  counsels,  however,  prevailed,  and  a  race  number¬ 
ing  five  millions  of  souls  was  elevated  from  the  degrada¬ 
tion  of  slavery  to  the  high  position  of  citizenship  of  a 
great  republic,  with  all  its  precious  rights  and  weighty 
responsibilities. 

Our  worthy  General  Agent,  whose  duties  during  the  last 
twelve  years  have  carried  him  into  all  portions  of  the 
Southern  States,  and  thrown  him  into  personal  communi¬ 
cation  with  all  classes  of  the  colored  race,  and  with  intel¬ 
ligent -and  trustworthy  persons  most  familiar  with  their 
condition  and  capacity,  states  in  his  last  Report  that  “  a 
large  portion  of  them  are,  confessedly,  unqualified  for  a 


OF  THE  SOUTHERN  STATES. 


15 


judicious  exercise  of  this  power”  (the  right  of  suffrage).  I 
No  unprejudiced  and  well-informed  man  can  question  the  I 
truth  of  this  statement. 

We  are  thus  compelled  to  face  the  fact  that  more  than 
half  a  million  of  voters,  scattered  over  half  the  Union, 
from  illiteracy  are  notoriously  incompetent  to  the  intel¬ 
ligent  discharge  of  the  public  duties  intrusted  to  them. 
This  large  class  of  uneducated  voters,  it  must  be  remem¬ 
bered,  are  not  merely  citizens  and  voters  of  the  States  in 
which  they  respectively  reside :  they  are  also  citizens  of 
the  United  States.  The  power  which  they  wield  and  the 
influence  which  they  exert  is  not  merely  local :  it  is  co-ex- 
tensive  with  the  Union.  Their  votes  may  decide  the  issues 
of  peace  or  war;  they  may  control  presidential  elections 
and  give  shape  to  the  policy  of  the  nation ;  they  are  enti¬ 
tled  to  participate  in  the  election  of  President  and  Vice- 
President,  of  Members  of  the  House  of  Representatives, 
and  of  the  State  Legislatures  which  choose  Senators  of 
the  United  States ;  they  elect  governors  and  legislators  of 
their  respective  States,  and  in  many  States,  judges,  clerks, 
sheriffs,  supervisors,  magistrates,  and  almost  every  officer 
intrusted  with  the  administration  of  public  affairs ;  they 
are  themselves  eligible  to  all  positions  of  honor,  trust,  and 
emolument,  and  legally  competent  to  act  as  judges  or  to  sit 
as  jurors  in  cases  involving  the  most  sacred  rights  of  life, 
liberty,  and  property. 

The  evils  likely  to  ensue  from  intrusting  political  power 
to  ignorant  and  incompetent  hands  have  been  so  forcibly 
and  eloquently  explained  by  the  late  Horace  Mann,  of 
Massachusetts,  that  your  Committee  cannot  forbear  from 
quoting  a  few  sentences  from  his  masterly  address  on  this 
subject  as  expressive  of  their  own  opinions.  He  says:  — 

“  The  illustrious  and  noble  band  who  framed  the  Constitution  of 
the  Union,  —  Washington,  Franklin,  Adams,  Jefferson,  Madison, — 


1 6  EDUCATION  FOR  THE  COLORED  POPULATION 


who  adjusted  all  the  principles  which  it  contains  by  the  line  and  the 
plummet,  and  weighed  the  words  which  describe  them  in  scales  so 
nice  as  to  tremble  beneath  the  dust  of  the  balance,  expended  the 
energies  of  their  mighty  minds  to  perfect  an  instrument  which, 
before  half  a  century  had  passed  away,  was  doomed  to  be  adminis¬ 
tered,  controlled,  expounded,  by  men  unable  to  read  and  write. 
The  power  of  Congress  over  all  the  great  social  and  economical 
interests  of  this  vast  country ;  the  orbits  in  which  the  States  are  to 
move  around  the  central  body  in  the  system ;  the  functions  of  the 
Executive,  who  holds  in  his  hand  the  army  and  the  navy,  manages 
all  diplomatic  relations  with  foreign  powers,  and  can  involve  the 
country  at  any  time  in  the  horrors  of  war ;  and  that  grand  poising 
power,  the  Supreme  Judiciary,  appointed  to  be  the  presiding  intel¬ 
ligence  over  the  system,  to  harmonize  its  motions  and  to  hold  its 
attracting  and  diverging  tendencies  in  equilibrium, — all  this  splendid 
structure,  the  vastest  and  nicest  ever  devised  by  mortals,  is  under 
the  control  of  men  who  are  incapable  of  reading  one  word  of  the 
language  which  describes  its  framework  and  defines  its  objects  and 
its  guards,  incapable  of  reading  one  word  of  contemporaneous  ex¬ 
position,  of  antecedent  history,  or  of  subsequent  development,  and 
therefore  make  it  include  anything  or  exclude  anything,  as  their 
blind  passions  may  dictate.  Phaeton  was  less  a  fool  when  he 
mounted  the  chariot  to  drive  the  horses  of  the  Sun,  than  ourselves, 
if  we  expect  to  reach  the  zenith  of  prosperity  and  happiness  under 
such  guidance.” 

If  Horace  Mann  felt  justified  in  using  language  like  this 
more  than  twenty  years  ago,  where  would  he  find  words 
adequate  to  the  expression  of  his  thoughts  if  he  were  living 
in  the  present  day  ! 

Assuming,  then,  that  the  solemn  warnings  of  Washington, 
Adams,  Jefferson,  Madison,  and  other  fathers  of  the  Re¬ 
public,  and  of  Horace  Mann,  one  of  the  most  devoted 
champions  of  freedom,  at  a  later  era,  were  not  merely  idle 
words,  idly  spoken,  but  the  deliberate  expression  of  their 
matured  convictions,  we  are  naturally  led  to  inquire,  How 
can  we  best  guard  against  the  evils  which  they  deemed  so 
dangerous? 


OF  THE  SOUTHERN  STATES. 


17 


Your  Committee  are  persuaded  that  the  best  security 
will  be  found  in  affording  to  ignorant  voters  such  a  degree 
of  education  as  will  qualify  them  for  the  intelligent  dis¬ 
charge  of  their  duties  as  citizens. 

Here  we  may  be  met  with  the  inquiry,  Does  your  Com¬ 
mittee  intend  to  recommend  that  Congress  shall  assume 
control  over  the  whole  subject  of  education  in  the  United 
States?  They  answer  unhesitatingly  in  the  negative. 
Popular  education  is  a  duty,  which,  as  a  general  rule, 
belongs  to  the  government  and  people  of  the  respective 
States.  It  is  a  matter  of  local  and  domestic  policy,  which 
can  be  more  appropriately  and  effectually  managed  by  the 
local  governments. 

But,  in  the  opinion  of  your  Committee,  the  colored  race  / 
constitute  an  exceptional  class  of  our  population.  Having/ 
for  generations  been  held  in  slavery,  they  had  no  opportu¬ 
nity  of  obtaining  education,  of  acquiring  property,  or  of 
qualifying  themselves  for  the  intelligent  discharge  of  the 
duties  of  citizenship.  They  are  not  responsible  for  their 
ignorance.  They  have  had  no  teachers  to  instruct  them  in 
even  the  rudiments  of  knowledge,  and  their  parents  were 
as  ignorant  as  themselves.  It  cannot,  therefore,  be  matter 
of  surprise  that  they  should  be,  as  they  unquestionably  are, 
generally  incompetent  to  form  intelligent  opinions  on  politi¬ 
cal  questions,  or  to  exercise  with  discretion  the  elective  fran¬ 
chise.  Justice  would  seem  to  demand  that  when  a  duty  is 
required  of  a  class  of  citizens,  the  means  should  be  afforded 
to  them  to  discharge  it  properly.  The  general  sentiment 
of  mankind  has  condemned  as  tyrannical  and  oppressive 
the  conduct  of  the  Egyptian  task-masters,  who  required 
the  Israelites  to  make  brick  and  yet  refused  to  furnish  the 
straw  that  was  necessary. 

There  is  another  aspect  of  this  subject  which  addresses 
itself  strongly  to  the  humanity  and  sympathy,  as  well  as  to 
the  sense  of  justice,  of  the  American  people. 


1 8  EDUCATION  FOR  THE  COLORED  POPULATION 


While  the  colored  race  were  held  in  bondage  they  were 
at  least  protected  from  want  by  the  superintending  care  of 
their  masters,  whose  interest,  as  well  as  duty,  prompted 
them  to  provide  for  the  physical  welfare  of  their  slaves. 
Emancipation  has  broken  this  bond,  and  the  illiterate  race 
is  now  brought  into  competition  with  the  whites  in  the 
struggle  for  subsistence.  Knowledge  is  said  to  be  power.* 
With  equal  truth  it  may  be  affirmed  that  ignorance  is 
weakness.  Your  Committee  have  already  quoted  the  preg-i 
nant  remark  of  Mr.  Madison,  that  “  Knowledge  will  forever 
govern  ignorance,  and  a  people  who  mean  to  be  their  own 
governors  must  arm  themselves  with  this  power  which 
knowledge  gives.”  Can  the  people  of  the  United  States 
feel  that  they  have  done  their  whole  duty  to  the  colored 
race  until  they  have  given  them  that  degree  of  education 
which  is  essential  to  self-protection? 

Passing  to  the  consideration  of  the  subject  in  its  broader 
and  national  aspects,  can  any  reflecting  man  doubt  that 
the  infusion  of  so  large  an  element  of  ignorance  into  the 
constituent  body  must  be  a  source  of  weakness  to  our 
system  of  government?  Can  any  one  fail  to  perceive  that 
|  such  a  class  of  voters  are  constantly  liable  to  become  the 
I  dupes  of  artful  demagogues,  and  give  their  support  to 
|  measures  dangerous  alike  to  liberty  and  property? 
m  The  Chairman  of  our  Board,  in  his  address  at  the  open¬ 
ing  of  the  last  meeting,  gave  us  an  admonition  on  this 
subject  which  should  never  be  forgotten.  It  was  in  these 
words :  “  Our  free  institutions  rest  upon  intelligence  and 
virtue,  and  can  survive  almost  anything  except  ignorance, 
and  the  vice,  corruption,  and  violence  which  are  so  gen¬ 
erally  the  results  of  ignorance.” 

Let  us  next  inquire  into  the  magnitude  of  the  danger 
which  threatens  us.  The  colored  population  of  the  United 
States  was  ascertained  by  the  census  of  1870  to  be,  in 


OF  THE  SOUTHERN  STATES 


19 


round  numbers,  four  and  a  half  millions.  At  the  present 
date  it  probably  exceeds  five  millions.  If  we  assume  that 
of  these  one-seventh  are  voters,  we  have  the  fact  that  there 
are  more  than  seven  hundred  thousand  colored  men  in  the 
United  States,  who  are  clothed  with  the  right  of  suffrage, 
and  yet,  in  the  mass,  are  incapable  of  discreetly  exercis¬ 
ing  it. 

We  are  now  brought  to  the  consideration  of  the  ques¬ 
tion,  From  what  source  are  the  means  to  be  supplied  which 
are  necessary  to  correct  the  evil? 

By  the  operation  of  causes  which  have  already  been 
adverted  to,  it  so  happens  that  this  class  of  our  population, 
which  at  the  date  of  our  independence  and  for  some  years 
afterwards  was  diffused  over  all  the  colonies,  is  now  con¬ 
fined  mainly  to  the  Southern  States.  These  States  have 
not  been  insensible  of  the  mischief  to  be  apprehended  from 
the  presence  of  so  large  a  class  of  ignorant  voters,  and 
they  have  manifested  the  most  praiseworthy  disposition  to 
aid,  as  far  as  their  means  would  allow,  in  their  education. 
In  most,  if  not  all  of  them,  systems  of  free  schools  have 
been  established  ;  but,  in  their  impoverished  condition,  they 
are  unable  adequately  to  meet  the  emergency. 

Some  idea  of  the  extent  of  the  impoverishment  of  these 
States  may  be  formed  by  reference  to  their  assessments  of 
values,  as  reported  in  the  census  returns  of  i860  and  1870: 

In  i860  the  aggregate  of  values,  including  slaves, 

was . $5,426,041,724 

In  1870  the  aggregate  was  .......  3,553,757,000 

Showing  a  decrease  during  the  decade  of  .  .  .  $1,872,284,724 

The  population  of  these  States  in  1870  was  :  — 


White 

Colored 


9>275>856 

4, 472.684 


20  EDUCATION  FOR  THE  COLORED  POPULATION 


It  will  thus  be  seen  that  in  1870  nearly  one-third  of  the 
population  of  those  States  consisted  of  recently  liberated 
slaves,  owning  but  little  or  no  property,  and  generally  with 
no  means  of  acquiring  any  except  by  manual  labor  in  grain 
or  cotton  fields.  If  we  add  to  these  the  number  of  whites 
who  were  impoverished  by  the  war,  it  will  probably  appear 
that  one-half  of  the  entire  population  is  incapable  of  bear¬ 
ing  taxation.  Most  of  the  Southern  States  which  have 
attempted  a  liberal  system  of  free  common-school  educa¬ 
tion  have  done  so  at  the  expense  of  their  creditors,  as  they 
were  obliged  to  apply  to  the  support  of  their  schools  the 
money  which  had  been  pledged  for  the  payment  of  their 
State  debts.  Relief  from  this  source  is  therefore  impracti¬ 
cable,  and  the  only  hope  that  remains  of  obtaining  it  is 
from  an  appeal  to  the  liberality  and  justice  of  Congress. 

Seven  hundred  thousand  illiterate  voters  constitute  an 
important  factor  in  national  politics.  The  influence  which 
they  may  exert  in  shaping  the  destiny  of  our  country  has 
already  been  adverted  to.  But  it  must  also  be  remembered 
that,  being  citizens  of  the  United  States,  they  are  entitled 
to  every  right  which  belongs  to  citizens  of  each  and  every 
State.  They  may  migrate,  at  pleasure,  to  any  State,  and 
there  exercise  all  the  rights,  including  the  right  of  suffrage, 
to  which  the  citizens  of  that  State  are  entitled.  An  exodus 
from  the  Southern  to  some  of  the  Western  States  has 
already  commenced,  and  the  day  may  not  be  far  distant 
when  the  colored  vote  may  be  the  controlling  power  in 
those  States.  Each  State,  therefore,  has  a  separate  interest 
in  guarding  against  the  evil  from  this  source  by  giving  aid 
in  the  education  of  this  class  of  voters. 

But  there  are  other  considerations  which  address  them¬ 
selves  with  great  force,  not  only  to  the  patriotism,  but  to 
the  self-interest  of  the  people  of  the  North. 

The  appeal  which  was  made  in  the  late  Civil  War  to  the 


OF  THE  SOUTHERN  STATES. 


21 


terrible  arbitrament  of  arms  has  settled,  as  we  hop finally % 
that  the  union  of  these  States  is  to  remain  forever  indissolu¬ 
ble.  Our  country  is,  therefore,  through  all  time,  to  remain 
one  and  indivisible.  This  unity  of  government  see^ms^ 
necessarily  to  imply  unity  of  interests.  All  the  States  being 
members  of  one  body,  whatever  affects  injuriously  any 
member  must  be  hurtful  to  all.  It  would  be  as  unreasona¬ 
ble  to  expect  that  an  ulcer  in  one  member  of  the  humaiv 
body  would  not  affect  the  whole  system,  as  to  suppose 
that  the  ignorance  and  vice  which  may  afflict  one  of  the 
States  would  not  extend  their  baneful  influence  to  all. 

History  teaches  us  that  in  all  communities  where  free¬ 
dom  of  thought  and  speech  is  tolerated,  earnest  and 
sometimes  angry  controversies,  growing  out  of  real  or 
supposed  diversities  of  interest,  are  almost  certain  to  arise. 
Among  the  most  fruitful  sources  of  this  kind  of  discorcT"^ 
is  the  assumed  antagonism  between  capital  and  labor,  be¬ 
tween  the  interests  of  the  rich  and  the  poor.  Fallacious 
as  all  such  ideas  may  be  regarded  by  educated  men,  they 
are,  and  ever  will  be,  captivating  to  the  uneducated  and 
the  destitute.  Where  large  masses  of  population  are 
uninformed,  and  in  need  of  the  common  necessaries  of  life, 
nothing  is  more  easy  than  for  artful  demagogues  to  inflame 
their  minds  against  their  more  fortunate  countrymen,  who, 
by  patient  industry  and  thrift,  have  been  able  to  surround 
themselves  and  their  families  with  all  the  appliances  of 
comfort  and  luxury. 

What  right  have  the  people  of  the  United  States  to 
claim  exemption  from  dangers  of  this  kind,  which  have 
proved  so  disastrous  in  other  countries?  It  must  be  re^l 
membered  that  probably  four-fifths  of  all  the  bonds  of  the 
United  States,  of  the  several  States,  of  counties,  cities,  and 
towns,  and  of  railroad  and  canal  companies;  and  even  a 
larger  proportion  of  the  stocks  of  all  the  banks,  railroad  and 


2  2  EDUCATION  FOR  THE  COLORED  POPULATION 


canal  companies,  factories,  insurance  companies,  and  other 
moneyed  corporations  which  are  held  by  citizens  of  the 
United  States,  are  owned  by  capitalists  of  the  Northern 
and  Eastern  States.  The  people  of  the  Southern  and 
Western  States,  and  especially  the  colored  people,  own 
very  few  of  them,  and  have  no  further  concern  with  them 
than  to  bear,  directly  or  indirectly,  their  share  of  the  taxes 
levied  to  pay  the  interest  or  dividends  on  them.  What 
security  have  the  people  of  the  United  States  that  these 
jarring  interests  of  debtor  and  creditor,  of  numbers  and 
property,  may  not  in  the  future  give  rise  to  serious  con¬ 
flicts?  Very  recently  riotous  commotions  of  this  kind 
assumed  such  formidable  proportions  as  to  render  it  nec¬ 
essary  to  use  military  power  to  suppress  them.  If  to 
this  turbulent  element  of  the  North  there  be  added  seven 
hundred  thousand  untutored  and  non-property-holding 
colored  voters,  whose  interest  is  opposed  to  these  kinds  of 
property  because  of  the  taxation  which  they  entail  upon 
them,  it  requires  no  spirit  of  prophecy  to  foresee  that  the 
danger  will  be  greatly  increased.  Attempts  have  already 
been  made,  and  not  without  some  success,  to  instil  into 


the  minds  of  the  colored  voters  the  idea  that  they  are 
neither  morally  nor  legally  bound  to  pay  any  public  debt 
which  was  contracted  before  they  were  emancipated  and 
invested  with  the  rights  of  citizenship. 

Admonitions  like  these  ought  to  teach  the  thoughtful 
men  of  all  parts  of  our  country,  those  who  desire  to  main¬ 
tain  the  peace  and  order  of  society,  that  the  time  for  vig¬ 
orous  action  has  come.  Delays  are  dangerous.  If  the 
corrective  be  not  promptly  applied,  the  evil  may  become 
irresistible.  That  corrective  is  the  diffusion  of  knowledge 
among  the  people ;  and  this  can  be  accomplished  only  by 
teaching  every  voter  to  read  and  write,  so  that  he  may  be 
able  to  have  access  to  the  best  sources  of  information  and 


OF  THE  SOUTHERN  STATES. 


23 


form  an  intelligent  opinion  on  every  question  which  may 
arise. 

The  next  point  which  your  Committee  have  felt  it  to  be 
their  duty  to  consider  is,  Does  Congress  possess  the  con¬ 
stitutional  power,  not  to  control ,  but  to  contribute  to,  the 
education  of  citizens  of  the  States? 

If  doubts  were  entertained  as  to  the  existence  of  such 
a  power  in  an  unqualified  form,  it  might  well  be  contended 
that  the  case  of  the  colored  population  is  surrounded  by 
such  peculiar  circumstances  as  to  take  it  out  of  the  influ¬ 
ence  of  any  general  rule.  But  fortunately,  this  question, 
even  in  its  general  aspect,  is  not  a  new  one,  presented  now 
for  the  first  time  to  be  decided.  It  may  be  regarded  as 
res  adjudicata.  The  laws  of  the  United  States  present 
innumerable  precedents  in  which  Congress  has  exercised 
the  power  to  contribute  toward  the  general  education  of 
citizens  of  the  new  States,  and  in  no  instance  has  its  con¬ 
stitutional  right  to  do  so  been  questioned. 

As  preliminary  to  the  discussion  of  this  branch  of  the 
subject,  it  may  be  proper  to  state  a  few  prominent  facts  in 
connection  with  the  public  domain  of  the  United  States, 
which  constitutes  the  fruitful  source  from  which  congres¬ 
sional  aid  to  education  has  been  supplied. 

By  the  treaty  of  1763  between  Great  Britain  and  France 
it  was  agreed  that  the  Mississippi  River  should  be  regarded 
as  the  western  boundary  of  the  British  American  Colo¬ 
nies.  At  the  close  of  the  Revolutionary  War  all  the  terri¬ 
tory  lying  between  the  Atlantic  on  the  east,  the  Mississippi 
on  the  west,  the  Lakes  on  the  north,  and  the  31st  parallel 
of  latitude  on  the  south,  was  either  included  in  the  limits 
of  the  thirteen  Colonies  or  was  claimed  by  them.  In  the 
year  1780,  at  a  very  critical  period  of  the  Revolutionary 
struggle,  the  Continental  Congress  urged  the  States  to  cede 
their  respective  claims  to  the  “Northwestern  Territory” 


24  EDUCATION  FOR  THE  COLORED  POPULATION 


to  the  general  Government,  as  a  measure  essential  to  the 
credit  of  the  Government,  and  perhaps  to  the  independence 
of  the  Colonies. 

After  much  negotiation  with  the  Continental  Congress, 
Virginia  agreed  on  the  20th  of  May,  1783,  to  make  the 
cession,  with  certain  reservations  and  on  conditions  set 
forth  in  the  Act  of  her  General  Assembly  of  that  date. 
Among  the  conditions  which  she  required  to  be  incor¬ 
porated  into  the  deed  of  cession  is  the  following :  — 

“  That  the  lands  within  the  territory  so  ceded  to  the  United 
States,  and  not  reserved  for  or  appropriated  to  any  of  the  before- 
mentioned  purposes,  or  disposed  of  in  bounties  to  the  officers  and 
soldiers  of  the  American  army,  shall  be  considered  as  a  common 
fund  for  the  use  and  benefit  of  such  of  the  United  States  as  have 
become  or  shall  become  members  of  the  Confederation,  or  Federal 
Alliance,  of  the  said  States  (Virginia  inclusive),  according  to  their 
usual  respective  proportions  of  the  general  charge  and  expendi¬ 
ture,  and  shall  be  faithfully  and  bona  fide  disposed  of  for  that 
purpose  and  for  no  other  use  or  purpose  whatsoever.”  —  Act  Dec. 
20,  1783. 

All  the  other  States  which  claimed  unsettled  territory 
within  the  limits  above  described,  from  time  to  time  ceded 
the  same  to  the  general  Government,  which  thus  became 
possessed  of  the  legal  title  to  the  whole.  The  purchase  of 
Louisiana  in  1803,  and  of  Florida  in  1819,  added  vastly 
to  the  area  of  the  public  domain  of  the  United  States,  and 
it  was  still  further  extended  by  acquisitions  from  Mexico, 
by  treaties  with  Indian  tribes,  and  by  the  purchase  of 
Alaska. 

In  the  first  act  passed  by  the  Continental  Congress,  on 
20th  of  May,  1785,  for  the  disposition  of  the  lands  ceded 
by  Virginia  and  the  other  States  (and  which  has  constituted 
the  basis  of  the  policy  in  regard  to  all  the  public  lands),  it 


OF  THE  SOUTHERN  STATES. 


25 


was  enacted  that  they  should  be  laid  off  into  townships, 
that  section  No.  16  in  each  township  should  be  reserved 
for  the  maintenance  of  public  schools,  and  that  two 
townships  in  every  State  should  be  set  apart  for  the  sup¬ 
port  of  a  university. 

In  1848  and  1849  a  still  more  liberal  policy  in  regard  to 
the  provision  for  educational  purposes  in  new  States  was 
adopted.  In  the  acts  passed  in  those  years  respectively, 
creating  the  Territories  of  Oregon  and  Minnesota,  section 
No.  36,  in  addition  to  section  No.  16,  in  each  township,  was 
set  apart  for  school  purposes ;  and  to  each  new  Territory 
organized  and  State  admitted  since  1848  (except  West 
Virginia),  the  sixteenth  and  thirty-sixth  sections  of  every 
township,  one-eighteenth  of  the  entire  area,  have  been 
granted  for  common  schools.  Other  States  have  received 
grants  greatly  in  excess  of  the  46,080  acres,  which  is  the 
quantity  embraced  within  two  townships.  Ohio  has  re¬ 
ceived  69,120  acres,  Florida  and  Wisconsin  92,160  acres 
each,  and  Minnesota  82,640  acres. 

For  information  in  regard  to  the  extent  of  these  grants 
your  Committee  are  indebted  to  the  first  report  of  Dr. 
Barnard,  late  United  States  Commissioner  of  Education, 
published  in  1868.  From  this  report  it  appears  further 
that  under  the  acts  of  Congress  passed  in  1785  and  1786, 
there  had  been  distributed  among  twenty-six  new  States 
and  Territories  67,983,914  acres  for  the  support  of  schools, 
besides  what  was  given  for  universities  and  deaf-mute  asy¬ 
lums.  Of  the  pecuniary  value  of  these  grants,  some  esti¬ 
mate  may  be  formed  by  reference  to  the  Report  of  Dr. 
Barnard  in  regard  to  the  lands  granted  to  Minnesota.  It 
appears  from  that  report,  that  from  1862  to  1866,  embracing 
a  period  of  five  years,  Minnesota  had  sold  210,769  acres, 
which  yielded  $1,324,779,  the  average  price  being  $6.28 
per  acre.  At  that  date  she  had  unsold  2,795,898  acres, 


26  EDUCATION  FOR  THE  COLORED  POPULATION 


which,  if  sold  at  the  same  price,  would  yield  nearly 
$18,000,000  more  !  In  other  words,  the  United  States  have 
granted  to  the  single  State  of  Minnesota  lands,  for  the  pur¬ 
poses  of  education,  which  have  a  money  value  of  nearly 
$20,000,000,  while  not  a  dollar’s  worth  has  been  granted  to 
any  of  the  original  thirteen  States  except  their  proportion 
of  the  grant  for  the  endowment  of  Agricultural  and  Me¬ 
chanical  Colleges,  in  which  the  new  States  as  well  as  the 
old  participated  ratably. 

In  view  of  this  unbroken  line  of  precedents,  commencing 
nearly  a  hundred  years  ago  under  the  articles  of  Confed¬ 
eration,  before  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  was 
adopted,  and  steadfastly  continued  under  the  Constitution 
of  the  United  States,  to  the  present  day,  it  would  seem  to 
be  idle  now  to  raise  a  question  as  to  the  constitutional 
power  of  Congress  to  make  such  grants. 

It  may  not  be  amiss  to  say  that  in  addition  to  the  grant 
of  land  made  by  the  United  States,  out  of  the  common 
fund,  for  the  purposes  of  education,  it  appears  from  the 
report  of  the  Commissioner  of  the  General  Land  Office, 
that  grants  amounting  in  the  aggregate  to  189,219,886  acres 
had  been  granted,  prior  to  1867,  mainly  for  the  benefit 
of  the  new  States,  for  the  construction  of  canals  and  rail¬ 
roads.  What  has  been  the  extent  of  the  grants  since  that 
date  your  Committee  have  not  had  the  means  of  ascer¬ 
taining. 

It  has  already  been  stated  that  the  cession  by  Virginia 
of  her  Northwestern  Territory  to  the  general  Government, 
which  was  among  the  earliest  in  the  order  of  time,  was 
made  and  accepted  on  the  condition  expressed  on  the  face 
of  the  deed  that  this  territory  so  ceded  should  be  held  and 
considered  as  a  common  fund  for  the  use  and  benefit  of 
all  the  States  (Virginia  included),  and  for  no  other  use  or 
purpose  whatsoever.  Your  Committee  have  not  had  access 


OF  THE  SOUTHERN  STATES. 


27 


to  the  deeds  of  cession  made  by  the  other  States  so  as  to 
be  able  to  state  whether  similar  conditions  and  trusts  were 
expressed  on  the  face  of  those  deeds.  Be  that  as  it  may, 
your  Committee  have  no  hesitation  in  expressing  the  opin¬ 
ion,  that  from  the  nature  and  purposes  of  the  grants,  and 
the  circumstances  under  which  they  were  made,  similar 
trusts  must  necessarily  be  implied.  And,  as  all  the  other 
additions  to  our  public  domain  were  acquired  either  by 
purchases  which  were  paid  for  out  of  the  common  treasury 
of  all  the  States,  or  by  conquest  effected  by  the  common 
arms  of  all  the  States,  a  trust  in  regard  to  them  necessarily 
results  for  the  common  benefit  of  all  the  States. 

The  whole  public  domain  may,  therefore,  justly  be  re¬ 
garded  as  a  trust  subject,  of  which  the  Government  of  the 
United  States  is  trustee  and  the  States  the  beneficiaries. 
This,  like  every  other  trust,  should  be  administered  equi¬ 
tably,  and  in  such  a  manner  as  to  give  effect  to  the  purposes 
for  which  it  was  created.  The  principles  of  equity  are  im¬ 
mutable.  They  are  not  affected  by  the  character  of  the 
parties  in  interest.  They  apply  with  equal  force  to  natural 
persons,  to  corporations,  and  to  governments.  Wherever 
a  trustee  has,  inadvertently  and  from  the  exigency  of  cir¬ 
cumstances,  departed  from  the  terms  and  spirit  of  the  trust, 
and  given  to  one  or  more  beneficiaries  a  larger  share  of 
the  trust  subject  than  he  or  they  are  entitled  to  receive, 
justice  demands  that  he  shall  so  administer  the  residue  as 
to  restore  equality  among  all  entitled  to  participate  in  the 
fund.  In  cases  where  an  individual  or  a  corporation  ame¬ 
nable  to  process  of  law  fails  or  refuses  to  administer  his 
trust  upon  this  principle,  a  court  of  equity  will  intervene  to 
compel  him  to  do  justice  among  all  the  parties  in  interest. 
The  Government  of  the  United  States  surely  cannot  ignore 
these  fundamental  maxims  of  equitable  jurisprudence,  or 
claim  exemption  from  them. 


28  EDUCATION  FOR  THE  COLORED  POPULATION 


The  above  statement  of  facts  is  intended  to  show  that 
the  Government  has  executed  its  trust  in  relation  to  the 
public  domain  only  partially.  Its  policy  has  been  mainly 
directed  by  the  necessity  of  encouraging  immigration  to 
new  States  struggling  into  existence  in  the  western  wilder¬ 
ness,  and  whose  people  were  unable  to  make  adequate  pro¬ 
vision  for  the  education  of  the  young.  This  necessity  was 
greatly  enhanced  by  the  fact  that  many  of  the  settlers  in 
the  new  States  were  foreigners,  ignorant  of  our  language 
and  of  our  institutions ;  and  it  was,  therefore,,  important  to 
enable  even  adults  to  acquire  such  education  as  was  nec¬ 
essary  to  fit  them  for  the  discharge  of  the  duties  of  good 
citizens. 

This  beneficent  purpose  has  now  been  accomplished. 
The  acts  of  Congress  have  provided  an  ample  educational 
fund  in  every  new  State  and  Territory,  and  the  reason  for 
departure  from  the  line  of  the  trust  no  longer  exists.  The 
time  has  arrived  when  its  fiduciary  obligations  should  be 
strictly  complied  with,  by  returning  to  the  principle  of 
equality  in  the  distribution  of  the  fund.  The  intrinsic 
equity  of  such  an  administration  of  the  trust  in  the  future 
must  commend  itself  to  every  fair  and  unprejudiced  mind, 
independently  of  all  extraneous  considerations.  But  it 
derives  new  force  from  the  fact  that  a  large  class,  without 
education  and  without  the  means  of  getting  it,  have,  by  the 
act  of  the  Government  itself,  been  made  voters  in  six  of  the 
“  Original  Thirteen,”  and  a  larger  number  of  the  new  States. 
The  just  claim  of  this  large  class  of  voters  can  no  longer 
with  propriety  be  resisted  or  evaded.  It  appeals,  as  has 
been  clearly  shown,  alike  to  the  justice  and  humanity  and 
Christian  sentiment,  and  we  may  add  to  the  enlightened 
self-interest  of  every  part  of  our  common  country. 

The  national  domain  which  still  remains  unappropriated 
amounted,  in  1867,  to  one  billion,  four  hundred  and  four- 


OF  THE  SOUTHERN  STATES. 


29 


teen  million,  five  hundred  and  sixty-seven  thousand,  five 
hundred  and  ninety-four  acres  (1,414,567,594). 

This  constitutes  an  ample  fund,  not  only  to  educate  the 
Colored  people  of  the  Southern  States,  but  to  equalize  the 
account  between  the  old  and  new  States,  and  still  leave  an 
almost  inexhaustible  supply  for  many  generations  to  come. 
It  appears  from  the  last  Annual  Report  of  our  able  and  ac¬ 
curate  General  Agent  that  there  are  at  this  time  “  two  mil¬ 
lions  of  children  in  these  [the  Southern]  States  without  the 
means  of  instruction.”  Of  these  doubtless  more  than  one- 
half  are  colored.  Our  General  Agent  presents  the  neces¬ 
sity  of  action  by  Congress  on  this  subject  in  the  following 
impressive  words :  “  The  mere  neglect  of  a  great  opportu¬ 
nity  may  entail  disaster  upon  them  and  their  posterity  by 
suffering  a  horde  of  young  barbarians  to  grow  up  to  prey 
upon  the  peace  of  society.  The  peril,  if  once  overlooked 
in  the  critical  moment,  cannot  afterwards  be  remedied  by 
legal  enactment  and  penal  measures.  If  men  fail  to  take 
the  necessary  precaution  by  training  the  young  to  be  use¬ 
ful  citizens,  they  must  expect  to  reap  a  corresponding  har¬ 
vest,  and  to  see  around  them  a  community  distinguished 
for  ‘  dwarfish  virtues  and  gigantic  vices.’  ” 

This  is  the  language  of  a  man  who  was  born,  reared,  and 
educated  in  the  East.  A  native  of  Massachusetts  and  for 
some  years  superintendent  of  public  schools  in  that  ancient 
commonwealth,  he  has  become  practically  acquainted  with 
the  necessity  of  education.  Twelve  years  ago  he  was  called 
from  the  presidency  of  Brown  University  in  Rhode  Island 
to  become  the  General  Agent  of  the  Peabody  Board. 
During  that  time  he  has  faithfully  fulfilled  the  duties  of  that 
position,  making  annual  visits  to  the  Southern  States,  hav¬ 
ing  free  intercourse  with  the  people  of  all  classes  and  colors, 
and  becoming  familiar  with  their  condition  and  wants.  He 
speaks,  therefore,  not  from  rumor  but  personal  observation 
and  knowledge. 


30  EDUCATION  FOR  THE  COLORED  POPULATION 

The  only  remaining  points  which  seem  to  demand  a  pass¬ 
ing  notice  from  your  Committee  are, —  1st,  the  mode  of 
administering  the  assistance;  2d,  the  extent  to  which  it 
should  be  carried ;  and  3d,  the  period  for  which  it  should 
be  continued. 

The  experience  of  this  Board  has  demonstrated  the  pro¬ 
priety  of  using  the  officers  connected  with  the  school  sys¬ 
tems  of  the  respective  States  as  agents  in  the  application 
of  the  funds  of  the  Peabody  Board  to  the  purposes  of  the 
trust.  All  the  Southern  States  seem  now  to  have  awakened 
to  a  sense  of  the  importance  of  a  general  system  of  free 
schools.  Most  of  them  have  organized  efficient  systems  of 
instruction  so  far  as  their  limited  means  will  allow  them  to 
go.  Faithful  and  competent  officers  have,  in  most  instances, 
been  put  in  charge  of  them.  These  agencies  are  too  im¬ 
portant  to  be  overlooked.  Their  employment,  as  means  by 
which  the  bounty  of  Congress  can  be  bestowed,  is  recom¬ 
mended  by  considerations  of  economy ;  and  their  use  would 
tend,  also,  to  avoid  local  jealousies  and  promote  harmony 
and  unity  of  action.  The  Bureau  of  Education,  already  or¬ 
ganized  at  Washington,  could  act  as  the  central  agency,  and 
have  the  general  direction  of  the  entire  system,  as  the  Gen¬ 
eral  Agent  of  the  Peabody  Board  now  has  in  the  adminis¬ 
tration  of  its  funds. 

2d,  As  to  the  extent  of  the  relief  to  be  afforded.  This 
will,  of  course,  depend  on  the  opinion  which  Congress  may 
form  as  to  the  importance  and  pressing  nature  of  the  sub¬ 
ject.  Your  Committee  will  only  suggest  that  it  should  be 
liberal  and  proportioned  to  the  great  work  to  be  done. 
The  first  effort  should  be  directed  to  the  successful  intro¬ 
duction  of  a  system  of  rudimentary  education.  Differences 
of  opinion  may  arise  as  to  what  branches  of  knowledge 
should  be  taught  in  these  schools.  Thomas  Jefferson,  who 
in  the  latter  part  of  his  life  bestowed  much  labor  and 


OF  THE  SOUTHERN  STATES. 


31 


thought  upon  the  subject  of  popular  education,  in  describ¬ 
ing  the  proper  subjects  and  limitations  of  primary  educa¬ 
tion,  says :  — 

“  These  objects  would  be  — 

“  To  give  to  every  citizen  the  information  he  needs  for  the  trans¬ 
action  of  his  own  business. 

“To  enable  him  to  calculate  for  himself,  and  to  express  and 
preserve  his  ideas,  his  contracts,  and  accounts  in  writing. 

“  To  improve,  by  reading,  his  morals  and  faculties. 

“  To  understand  his  duties  to  his  neighbors  and  country,  and  to 
discharge  with  competence  the  functions  confided  to  him  by  either. 

“  To  know  his  rights ;  to  exercise  with  order  and  justice  those 
he  retains  ;  to  choose  with  discretion  the  fiduciary  of  those  he  dele¬ 
gates  ;  and  to  notice  their  conduct  with  diligence,  with  candor, 
and  judgment. 

“  And,  in  general,  to  observe  with  intelligence  and  faithfulness 
all  the  social  relations  under  which  he  shall  be  placed. 

“  To  instruct  the  mass  of  our  fellow-citizens  in  these  their  rights, 
interests,  and  duties  as  men  and  citizens,  being  then  the  objects  of 
education  in  the  primary  schools,  whether  private  or  public,  in 
them  should  be  taught  reading,  writing,  and  numerical  arithmetic, 
the  elements  of  mensuration  (useful  in  so  many  callings),  and  the 
outlines  of  geography  and  history.” 

3d,  As  to  the  period  of  time  for  which  this  liberal  pro¬ 
vision  for  the  primary  education  of  the  colored  race  should 
be  continued.  Your  Committee  hope  that  if  the  system 
which  they  propose  shall  be  adopted,  its  benefits  will  be 
so  apparent  that,  by  general  consent,  a  permanent  fund 
will  be  set  apart,  as  has  been  done  in  the  new  States,  for  its 
continuance  through  all  future  time.  But  the  most  urgent 
demand  now  is  for  a  liberal  provision  to  meet  the  exi¬ 
gencies  of  the  present  time.  The  colored  people  of  the 
Southern  States  are  now  in  great  part  ignorant  and  without 
property.  Few  of  the  adults  can  read  or  write.  They  are 
incapable,  therefore,  of  giving  any  instruction  to  their 


32  EDUCATION  FOR  THE  COLORED  POPULATION 


children  at  home.  They  are  entirely  dependent  on  the  as¬ 
sistance  of  the  public  schools.  Aid  should  be  given,  not  only 
to  the  young,  but  also  to  adults  where  they  are  willing  to 
receive  it.  If  such  a  system  of  instruction  be  pressed  with 
energy  for  fourteen  or  fifteen  years,  it  is  hoped  that  after 
that  time,  in  consequence  of  the  advance  which,  it  may  rea¬ 
sonably  be  expected,  the  race  will  have  made  in  the  attain¬ 
ment  of  knowledge  and  the  acquisition  of  property,  the 
amount  contributed  for  their  benefit  may  be  gradually 
diminished. 

In  view  of  all  the  facts  and  reasons  above  stated,  your 
Committee  are  of  the  opinion  that  the  suggestions  made  in 
the  Address  of  the  Chairman  and  the  Report  of  the  General 
Agent  were  wise  and  well  timed,  and  ought  to  receive  the 
sanction  and  support  of  the  Board. 

In  conclusion,  it  may  not  be  improper  to  offer  a  few  words 
explanatory  of  the  reasons  which  seem  to  render  it  proper 
that  this  Board  should  bring  the  matter  of  education  in  the 
Southern  States  to  the  notice  of  Congress. 

George  Peabody,  the  enlightened  and  beneficent  founder 
of  the  trust  which  bears  his  honored  name,  was  a  native  of 
Massachusetts,  but  for  many  years  a  resident  of  London, 
where  he  accumulated  a  large  fortune.  With  characteristic 
sagacity,  he  was  among  the  first  to  foresee  the  evils  which 
would  be  entailed  on  the  Southern  States  by  the  ravages  of 
the  war,  and  the  consequent  inability  of  the  people  of  those 
States  to  extend  to  the  rising  generation  the  blessings  of 
education.  Discarding  every  feeling  of  a  sectional  character 
and  acting  with  a  magnanimity  almost  without  a  parallel 
in  history,  he  dedicated  several  millions  of  dollars  of  his 
private  fortune  “to  beheld  by  trustees  [named  by  himself] 
and  their  successors,  and  the  income  thereof  used  and  ap¬ 
plied,  in  their  discretion,  for  the  promotion  and  encourage¬ 
ment  of  intellectual,  moral,  and  industrial  education  among 


OF  THE  SOUTHERN  STATES. 


33 


the  young  of  the  more  destitute  portions  of  the  Southern 
and  Southwestern  States  of  our  Union,  his  purpose  being 
that  the  benefits  intended  should  be  distributed  among  the 
entire  population,  and  without  other  distinction  than  their 
needs  and  the  opportunities  of  usefulness  to  them.” 

For  twelve  years  the  members  of  this  Board  have  en¬ 
deavored  faithfully  to  discharge  the  duties  of  the  trust 
reposed  in  them.  In  the  performance  of  this  duty  their 
thoughts  have  been  turned  to  the  destitution  of  the  South¬ 
ern  States,  to  the  unlettered  condition  of  a  large  portion  of 
their  population,  and  to  the  necessity  of  extending  liberal 
assistance  to  the  education  of  the  new  class  of  voters  who 
have  been  introduced  into  our  system.  The  Board  have 
the  satisfaction  of  knowing  that  with  the  limited  means  at 
their  disposal  they  have  been  able  to  accomplish  much 
good.  But  these  means  are  entirely  disproportionate  to 
the  end.  Where  millions  of  citizens  are  growing  up  in  the 
grossest  ignorance,  it  is  obvious  that  neither  individual 
charity  nor  the  resources  of  impoverished  States  will  be 
sufficient  to  meet  the  emergency.  Nothing  short  of  the 
wealth  and  power  of  the  Federal  Government  will  suffice  to 
overcome  the  evil. 

Your  Committee  are,  therefore,  of  the  opinion  that,  as 
the  official  representatives  of  George  Peabody  and  of  the 
patriotic  purposes  which  he  had  in  view  in  the  establish¬ 
ment  of  his  trust,  it  is  eminently  proper,  if  not  strictly  in 
the  line  of  their  duty,  that  this  Board  should  present  to  the 
notice  of  Congress  the  facts  which  have  come  to  their 
knowledge  in  the  course  of  their  administration  of  this 
trust,  and  ask  that  Congress  shall  give  such  aid  as  may  be 
deemed  proper  in  furtherance  of  education  in  the  Southern 
States. 

Your  Committee,  therefore,  recommend  the  adoption  of 
the  following  Resolution :  — 


34  EDUCATION  FOR  THE  COLORED  POPULATION. 

Resolved ,  That  it  is  expedient  that  this  Board  should  present  a 
memorial  to  Congress,  praying  that  it  may  grant  such  aid  as  may  be 
required  to  secure  to  the  colored  population  of  the  Southern  States 
the  education  which  is  necessary  to  fit  them  for  the  discharge  of 
their  duties  as  citizens  of  the  United  States. 

ALEX.  H.  H.  STUART. 
M.  R.  WAITE. 

WM.  M.  EVARTS. 

Washington,  February  19,  1880. 


3  0112  043783858 


